Microsoft Office Qualifications

shopbot

ohreally wrote: »

How often do you find employers looking for office quals in their recruitment ads?

Very often, although it doesn't say which qualification but simply say Advanced Excel with V Look Up etc.

I see as getting a recognised qualification as a way of benchmarking myself to a certain level. Another option would be to possibly find the syllabus of one of the courses and then self teach using free resources like Youtube.

SB

asajj

To be honest, there is nothing advance about Vlookups etc. Employers tend to list them as such though. If you do know how to use them, I can't see a need for a paper confirming this.

If you however, don't - then I'd instead use free resources to learn. There are certain things such as pivot tables, VLookUps, filtering, sorting, conditional formatting - these will be used at pretty much at all office related jobs.

How is your level of knowledge on Excel then?

shopbot

asajj wrote: »

How is your level of knowledge on Excel then?

I'd say intermediate. I'm comfortable with writing formulas (SUMIF level), filtering, sorting, making charts. I've no experience of pivot tables, Vlookups or Macro's.

xapprenticex

[IMO] office quals are a waste of time, its experience and ability (tested at interview stage) that matters

shopbot

xapprenticex wrote: »

[IMO] office quals are a waste of time, its experience and ability (tested at interview stage) that matters

Thanks - I appreciate that point. However putting actual qualifications aside I still would like to be able to benchmark myself. That's because I don't want to declare myself as x on my application and then make a fool of myself when tested.

Even if it's not with a formal qualification can anybody recommend any resources/checklists, that would allow me to check what is roughly expected at each level?

Thank you for everyones help - it's much appreciated.

asajj

shopbot, I'd say pivot tables, Vlookups are important. Macros are great if you know how to use them but let's say if you have a job in finance, no one would be expect you to be an expert in them.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/excel-formulas-and-functions-for-dummies-cheat-she.html

http://www.excelfunctions.net/Basic-Excel.html

http://excelbyjoe.com/the-top-20-excel-functions-you-need-to-know-if-youre-an-excel-user/

Couple of links for you. Also your local library likely to have some books on the subject, might worth looking.

CrowCrow

shopbot wrote: »

I'd say intermediate. I'm comfortable with writing formulas (SUMIF level), filtering, sorting, making charts. I've no experience of pivot tables, Vlookups or Macro's.

Vlookups and pivots are (low) intermediate.

Macros are generally considered advanced.

VBA is advanced.


With Excel, for me, an intermediate is someone who knows what Excel can do, they might not know how to do it, but they know it can do, or it should be able to do, this or that.

If someone shows that to me, I'm happy. We all use google anyway.

Andypandyboy

Many people know what excel can do, the trick is to have an idea what the result should look like; or the ability to use simple test data which highlights any errors.

From what the OP describes I would say they are a competent low level user not an intermediate user.

gettingready

Forget ECDL, if you do want Ms Office qualification got for MOS.

I have done ECDL/ECDL Advanced/MOS/MOS Expert/MOS Master Instructor - I needed all as I work as a Trainer (MS Office not much now as mostly train on bespoke systems)

MOS is accredited by Microsoft and ECDL by BCS so obviously most people will put more value on MOS.

Good luck

TrickyDicky101

If you want to gain experience and improve your capability, go to an online help forum like www.mrexcel.com/forum and just look at the questions asked by others and think how you would answer them.

Naturally many you may have no idea about but seeing how others provide working solutions to the questions, and - even better - attempting yourself to provide answers is the best way to improve your expertise in my opinion.